Upgrade Your Life While You Wait

I've been following what's happening in Kathy Carlton Willis' life, so I know this UPGRADE was born as a life message in her heart.

"No one eludes those pesky life on-hold challenges," Kathy says, "but everyone wants to know how to live through them without hating the wait."

Waiting. It's not something I (Dawn) have ever enjoyed. It's so hard for me to "wait for the Lord" and His goodness in my circumstances (Psalm 27:13-14). So I appreciate Kathy's "waiting wisdom."

She continues ...

Probably the hardest thing for me, and most of you, is the trial of hurry-up-and-wait. Left unchecked, it tests my patience, challenges my contentment, and sours my joy.

I have several God-and-me times yearly to evaluate the priorities He wants me to have, the goals He sets for me—you name it. The frustrating part comes when I think I have my marching orders from God and then something comes into my life that puts everything on hold.

I get so antsy to want to hurry up and do what God has planted as a burning passion in my life, but instead I have no choice but to wait. It feels like I’m expected to sit on my hands! I’m quite certain you can relate.

I’ve come to realize that the reason I hate the wait is because I feel like I have to make progress to please God. And I’ve been programmed to think I have to be doing something or see a situation moving in the right direction to count as progress.

I’m learning from back-to-back-to-back on-hold situations that it’s in the wait where we grow, others grow, and situations come together for a better outcome later on. Just because we can’t see the signs of progress doesn’t mean nothing good is going on.

Psalm 62:5 says, "Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him" (NLT).

The wait is not a delay, it’s an on-purpose plateau to let what used to be catch up with what’s going to be in the future.

It’s just like losing weight. If we don’t allow for the plateaus when we diet, our skin doesn’t shrink up and we walk around like Shar Pei puppies. We don’t want saggy baggy skin, and we don’t want saggy baggy lives, either.

A life on hold isn’t a life delayed. It’s just not time yet.

What do you do about it when you hit a delay in your git-up-and-go? Does it derail you? Do you learn to be flexible? How do you cope? After you are no longer on hold, does hindsight help you find the blessing in the wait?

Perhaps you recognize a drama avoided by the delay or a travesty missed by the trial of waiting. Or maybe you see the results of a spiritual growth spurt that took place during the time you felt you were stalled out.

One of the exercises I learned to do during my latest life-on-hold period was to evaluate: What do I do that drains me? What energizes me?

God loves for us to accentuate those things that propel us rather than those things that drag us down. Think motors, not anchors. Of course, all work has aspects we don’t like—that’s why it’s called work! But it’s important to do something daily that gets us jazzed. Can you put your finger on that thing that makes your motor purr?

Delays are the beginning of grand adventures.

Join me today by asking yourself, “What attitude adjustment can I make today to help me get closer to the future God’s dreamed up just for me?”

Kathy Carlton Willis writes and speaks with a balance of funny and faith—whimsy and wisdom. She shines the light on issues that hold women back and inspires their own lightbulb moments. Almost a thousand of Kathy’s articles have been published and she has several books releasing over the next three years, including Grin with Grace with AMG Publishers. She and her husband/pastor, Russ, live in Texas. Learn more at: www.kathycarltonwillis.com/